According to Athenaeus of Naucratis, the 2nd-century AD author of The Sophists’ Banquet, the ancient Sybarites kept the capital of their city-state in southern Italy supplied with wine through a network of ‘vinoducts’ that reached far out into the surrounding countryside.

The Prince, according to Machiavelli, ‘should appear, to see him, to hear him, all compassion, all good faith, all integrity, all piety’ — which might be translated into Basic Blairish as ‘should appear a pretty straight kind of guy’ — but, as the Florentine Father of Spin emphasised, it was a great deal more important to seem to have, rather than actually to have, these qualities.